The Orthodox doctrine of causality

[Isaac David]

In this article (http://www.stvladimirs.ca/library/orthodox-doctrine-causality.html), St. Nikolai Velimirovich describes the above-named doctrine.

This doctrine, as St. Nikolai formulates it in the article, has been criticised by a third party in the following words:

St. Nikolai makes a disastrous and elemental confusion between "theoria" which is the illumination of divine truth through experience concerning the Uncreated and "scientia" which is the illumination of reason when applied to natural Created phenomena. In attributing the SAME personalist causality to both he erodes that distinction with devastating results. Essentially he renders science obsolete and thereby naturalises theology into disreputable magic.

The same person also says that St. Nikolai goes too far when he says "Therefore we make no concessions to the secular, or scientific theories about impersonal, unintelligent, unintentional or accidental causality in the world."

Although I am in correspondence with the third party, I am not interested in winning an argument with him; I am more interested in establishing for myself whether St. Nikolai is really open to such criticism. I don't believe he is, but I am not a scholar. Has anyone else knowledge of the doctrine which St. Nikolai espouses and its roots in the Fathers? I have found a couple of sentences in Fr. Michael Pomazansky's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology which seem to bear on the matter:

The power of God keeps the world in existence and participates in all the activities of the created powers. The constancy of the so-called "laws of nature" is an activity of the living will of God; by themselves these "laws" would be powerless and ineffective.

and then:

The activity of God's Providence is not, so to speak, an interference in the course of the life given to the world at its creation; it is not a series of private intrusions of God's will into the life of the world.

But there may be more on this elsewhere that I am not aware of.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

Isaac David

[Fr. Gregory (Hallam)]

I thank Isaac for his cloak of anonymity in advance of advising me of this thread, but I am now happy to come clean and say:- "Twas me!"

I freely confess to not being 'au fait' with the works of St. Nikolai and although his sanctity outshines anything I have as a quasar might be compared with a sick and lack lustre glow worm ... nonetheless I disagree with his (apparent) characterisation of causality.

If I thought St. Nikolai was in agreement with Fr. Michael Pomazansky on this matter I would instantly withdraw my objection as I wholeheartedly agree with Fr. Michael as indicated in the above quotes. But, I don't think that St. Nikolai is agreeing, leastways, that's not how I read him.

It might be helpful to include a few more of my own comments imported from another forum where the debate is unlikely to achieve the depth and context that we might find here. I stand with humility, perhaps in need of correction ... but I am mindful to explain and defend my position.

Fr. George Metallinos says this of the two kinds of knowledge that correspond to the two different types of causality ... albeit both arising ultimately from the same divine Source.

The first knowledge is supernatural and the second is natural. This corresponds to the clear distinction between the Uncreated and the created, between God and creation. These two types of learning require two methods of learning. The method of divine wisdom-knowledge is the communion of man with the Uncreated through the heart. It is accomplished through the presence of the Uncreated energy of God in man's heart. The method of secular wisdom-knowledge is science, it is accomplished by exercising the intellectual/ logical power of man. Orthodoxy establishes a clear hierarchy in the two types of knowledge and their methods.

This is from this article ...

Faith and Science in Orthodox Gnosiology and Methodology (http://www.romanity.org/mir/me01en.htm)

I am suggesting that St. Nikolai (at least in this article ... which is the only thing I have read of his on the matter) doesn't make the distinction clear enough (as Fr. Michael Pomazansky and Fr George Metallinos do) between divine action and corresponding knowledge of divine causality in the the phenomena of created things (mediated) and the unmediated and direct apprehension of the divine energies in the lives of the transfigured saints, (which, pace, St. Symeon the New Theologian, includes, potentially all the baptised).

I want to make that distinction clear to give science it's proper place ... which I don't think St. Nikolai does. He seems to reject the contingent freedom of creation both in its orderliness (natural laws) and in its indeterminacy (quantum mechanics, random events).

From God's perspective nothing is truly random ... but only in the sense that he's in charge at levels we cannot discern ... nonetheless, even that being so, creation maintains (as we do) its own intrinsic freedom.

Although my next comment is a bit tangential to this, I offer it from the other board as an explanation as to how God can remain providentially in charge whilst accepting the full force of our human freedom. It's a sort of reflection on Isaiah 55:8-11. I leave the final comment on the dangers of believers not respecting the proper domain of science to St. Augustine.

First my comment on Isaiah ...

God's knowing is not the same as our knowing. God's knowing is not driven by certainty or uncertainity as know them. He effortlessly and immediately adapts to the outcomes of human freedom. These adaptations are as frequent as changes in the Cosmos as a whole. Every time one change happens in the Cosmos, history is eternally re-written in God's now. God suffers no loss or change in any of this. He remains in charge by virtue of his eternal omniscience.

Now here's St. Augustine (on one of his better days) ...

"Even non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn."
- Saint Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1, Chapter 19

[Dusan Basta]

http://www.stvladimirs.ca/library/or...causality.html

I would like to thank you very much for revealing this article, real gem, that I didn't read before, even though I am Serbian orthodox and I thought I have read everything from St. Nikolai. :))

After I read it I was stunned how beautiful and in truly orthodox spirit this article is.
Look at this sentence for example.

`Christianity is a religion not so much of principles, rules and precepts, but primarily and above all of personal attachments, in the first place an affectionate attachment to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through Him to other members of His Church, the living and the dead.`

or something like this

`And we Christians have been, and always shall be, victorious over these satanic forces through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Why through Him? Because love is greater power than all other powers, visible and invisible. And Christ came to the earth and went down below to the very hellish nest of the satanic hosts to crush them in order to liberate and save men for sheer love of men. Therefore, He could at the end of His victorious mission say: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth". (Mt. 28, 18)`

Trying to dissect and analyze St. Nikolai via ex-cathedra approach, i.e. from the chair :)), simply does not work, as St. Nikolai writes from the heart, and not for some boring theological seminaries, but for love of Christ.